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    • Strange Account of the Origin of Matter, from the Various Affections of Achamoth. The Waters from Her Tears; Light from Her Smile.
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    Chapter XV.—Strange Account of the Origin of Matter, from the Various Affections of Achamoth.  The Waters from Her Tears; Light from Her Smile.

    Well, now, the Pythagoreans may learn, the Stoics may know, Plato himself (may discover), whence Matter, which they will have to be unborn, derived both its origin and substance for all this pile of the world—(a mystery) which not even the renowned6776

    6776 Ille.

    Mercurius Trismegistus, master (as he was) of all physical philosophy, thought out.6777

    6777 Recogitavit.

    You have just heard of “Conversion,” one element in the “Passion” (we have so often mentioned). Out of this the whole life of the world,6778

    6778 “Omnis anima hujus mundi” may, however, mean “every living soul.”  So Bp. Kaye, On Tertullian, p. 487.

    and even that of the Demiurge himself, our God, is said to have had its being. Again, you have heard of “sorrow” and “fear.” From these all other created things6779

    6779 Cetera.

    took their beginning. For from her6780

    6780 Achamoth’s.

    tears flowed the entire mass of waters.  From this circumstance one may form an idea of the calamity6781

    6781 Exitum.

    which she encountered, so vast were the kinds of the tears wherewith she overflowed. She had salt tear-drops, she had bitter, and sweet, and warm, and cold, and bituminous, and ferruginous, and sulphurous, and even6782

    6782 Utique.

    poisonous, so that the Nonacris exuded therefrom which killed Alexander; and the river of the Lyncestæ6783

    6783 These two rivers, with their peculiar qualities, are mentioned by Pliny, H. N. ii. 103; [and the latter by Milton against Salmasius.]

    flowed from the same source, which produces drunkenness; and the Salmacis6784

    6784 Ovid. Metam. iv. 286.

    was derived from the same source, which renders men effeminate. The rains of heaven Achamoth whimpered forth,6785

    6785 Pipiavit.

    and we on our part are anxiously employed in saving up in our cisterns the very wails and tears of another. In like manner, from the “consternation” and “alarm” (of which we have also heard), bodily elements were derived. And yet amidst so many circumstances of solitude, in this vast prospect of destitution, she occasionally smiled at the recollection of the sight of Christ, and from this smile of joy light flashed forth.  How great was this beneficence of Providence, which induced her to smile, and all that we might not linger for ever in the dark! Nor need you feel astonished how6786

    6786 Qui.

    from her joy so splendid an element6787

    6787 As light.

    could have beamed upon the world, when from her sadness even so necessary a provision6788

    6788 Instrumentum: water is meant.

    flowed forth for man. O illuminating smile! O irrigating tear! And yet it might now have acted as some alleviation amidst the horror of her situation; for she might have shaken off all the obscurity thereof as often as she had a mind to smile, even not to be obliged to turn suppliant to those who had deserted her.6789

    6789 Christ and the Holy Spirit. Oehler.

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